Abstract

This article looks at the history of plans for the reuse of the zone of land left vacant by the fall of the Berlin Wall. This strip and its redevelopment offer a window on the complex planning processes and issues that have been animating the city as a whole for the past fifteen years. In the main, plans developed since 1989 took a restorative approach, aimed at establishing continuity with the pre-Wall character of sites and ground plans. More recently, however, a maverick view, which urged an ahistorical solution in the form of a greenbelt, merged with the desire to preserve the historical memory of the Wall. The result of this synthesis is a second layer of development that challenges the authority of the conventional planning process. The article sets analysis of post-reunification planning documents within the context of post-war planning experiences to gain insight into how planning in East and West Berlin contributed to recent developments.